Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Herculoids: "The Beaked People"

This week’s segment of the Hanna Barbera  Saturday morning series The Herculoids (1967) is called “The Beaked People,” and it is a little jauntier than some of the previous installments.  There’s still no exposition, explanation or background, but the episode at least seems to have more fun with the basic premise than some stories so far.

In “The Beaked People,” alien parrots (!) led by the evil Krogar, invade the planet Azmot. Their first act of terror is to run off the planet’s peaceful flying monkeys, and “destroy all those who resist.”  Zandor steps up to fight Krogar but is captured, tied to a log, and sent hurtling down “The Dark River.”  His destination is a waterfall at the end of this “River of the Bottomless Pit.”

When Dorno is also captured too, Tara and Zok save the day.  Zok frees Zandor from his bindings as he goes over the waterfall, and Krogar ends up in his place.  We actually see him plummeting down the waterfall to his doom.

This is the first Herculoids episode in which we’ve seen other, apparently indigenous creatures of Azmot. 

The flying monkeys are a friendly lot, and look as though they came straight from The Wizard of Oz (1939).  

As for the regular creatures -- Igoo, Gleep and Gloop, Tundro and Zok -- at least a few of them are treated with humor for the first time.  Early in the episode, Dorno attempts to teach Igoo to crack nutshells with his fingers, but he ends up turning the shells -- and the nuts -- to dust.  Dorn also describes Tundro as having a very healthy appetite.

No it’s not much. But it’s an attempt at least to deepen the characters a little bit.  There seems to be a dawning awareness on the part of the writers that they are doing “camp” here.  Whether that is a good thing or not, I’ll leave to individual taste.  At least the hokey humor breaks up the monotony a bit.

In terms of the villains, Krogar and the “beaked people” are again given no motive, rational or otherwise, for their invasion of the planet of Azmot.  And again, Krogar professes a history with Zandor.  They have, apparently, tangled before. 

As an adult viewer of The Herculoids, it would be nice to know more about Zandor’s storied past, though as a kid, I suppose it’s the rock ‘em, sock ‘em action that matters.